Suck Less

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How to SUCK LESS at

MAKEUP

HOW TO MAKE A DRAG LOOK WORK IN EVERYDAY LIFE

In the right light and from across the street, you'd swear I was a real woman. The closer I get, the more apparent it is that I am one of those girls with some skirtsteak. I'm not into heavily painting my face to mask any masc features. While there are some great techniques that can be used that look great in photos or on stage, up close they look more like a Lion King the musical face chart. Instead, I'm a big fan of having a painting party and switching off with friends on each other's faces. I was lucky enough to have Miss Fame, Mathu Andersen, and Trixie Mattel paint me for some pics in this book, and I learned a lot each time. One thing we all agree on is the first step to any queen's face should be some good blow. You're gonna wanna blow your nose real well because you can't touch it once you start making up your mug. Snot is a gigantic variable and if you have to blow your nose, there goes the whole bull's-eye of your face.

This is my personal step-by-step to get into full geish which you can adapt and use as you please for your own showgirl, date night, or prom mode. You can alternate your base and eye to your liking, but the last few steps should be followed unless you're angling for a mishap. For instance, I like to tuck before I wig up in case my dick-tape gets caught in my hair. Nails should always go on last because if you have to buckle a shoe or give your hose one last tug up, you don't wanna pop a press-on. I tend to give ninety minutes for a full transformation to walk-out-the-door ready. With the right hairstyle, I can cut that down to as little as thirty minutes, depending on the size of the purse I've selected to store the fucks I may or may not chose to give for the evening.

So let's start. This is what I look like without retouching. I'm not trying to live a lie like Kevyn Aucoin's Making [Photoshop] Faces book. You know I'm a dude. Plus, Photoshop woulda cost more and and I blew most of the money on strippers and wigs.

I love makeup so much. My mom never wore any makeup, and so I learned about makeup from my dad—specifically, his porn. The '90s was a great time to be a whore, and I loved the smoky eyes that almost every Playboy centerfold was sporting.

I start around my eyes because I like to get a really saturated color and not worry about fallout makeup ruining foundation. I pack a ton on and swoop it out with a makeup wipe. You can also use tape or a business card to get a precise line. If one eye is bolder than the other, it's fine. No one's gonna not fuck you 'cause your makeup is uneven. Don't worry. That's what doggy style is for.

1 Rub that eye boogie into your eyelid skin and then take a color similar to whatever the discharge was and highlight your brow bones and inner tear ducts.

2 Line the top lids of your eyes with a pencil, Sharpie or brush dipped in eyeshadow and spit.

3 Shut your eye and go over the lash lines with a brush dipped in dark shadow (brown, navy, or charcoal), hitting your upper and lower lids. Following the orbital bones around with the same color works for me. Denying your heritage and just plopping a crease wherever you want on your lids is also an option if you're eyelids are mini garage doors of creaseless flesh.

4 This is the point when you correct any dark circles and beards. Warming up the area with an orangey tone works for me because I'm blond. Darker beards should go with a darker color. I also warm up my crease with some of the same color just 'cause I figured I should look like I tried.

5 Apply a foundation or concealer one shade lighter than the skin under your eyes, onto the apples of your cheeks, onto the ball and bridge of your nose, and up into the central forehead, and put a dash on the chin. Use a thicker product if you need the coverage due to the fact that you're rotted. Take better care of your skin and maybe get a facial that doesn't come out of a bologna pump once in a while?

6 Apply a foundation or concealer that matches your neck all over everywhere else. You should also decide what you're wearing at this point because it will determine how far down you need this makeup to go. Some queens do Britney, and their nude illusion is basically a dude's delusion. Their tights are one color, their midriff and arms another color, their neck and titty area yet another shade, and then their mug. Raven is consistently one color and should be everyone's barometer for correctness. I hear she dyes her tights to match. Excuses are useless. Suck less.

7 Now, I'm a very lucky individual. I have more structure in my cheekbones than many have in their entire lives. But contouring can take a girl from a closet-organizing personal shopper who gets pissed on by Brandy's little brother into, well… someone with really good contouring who just stole all of makeup master Scott Barnes's tricks. Scott's skills established JLo's sparkling signature look, and his shading and highlighting techniques have influenced beauty ideals to where they currently sit. He told me to place my contour color under my cheekbones and along the sides of my nose, my chin, and the perimeter of my forehead. This is the third color in the beige rainbow, from the highlight color through multiple foundation tones up to the contour color. You can also add yet another color with some colored hair spray if you're trying to blend a mannish hairline into a snatched-back bewigglement on your head. If you're a first-time-in-drag-at-a-ball-er, use evening time tones with evening shade. Don't be a daywalker, trying to walk in the day with your newbie contour. Light don't lie and it will expose the structure under the paint you tried to contour. Think of contour as the paint version of when an MTF just pumps her face full of fillers instead of getting proper facial feminization surgery, which reshapes the bones. It's like trying to frost a square cake round.

8 Paint with all the colors of the wind but only if the wind matches your skin tone.

Now, I know this is a lot. So let's just put some more shit on shit.

9 At this point, I apply a light mist of an aerosol foundation and use a puff to blend all the edges and set things. Scream a bit and move your face too so you don't have those crevices at the corners of your mouth, nostrils, and eyes that may not be reachable without adjusting your stone-cold RBF.

10 Time to cook! Cooking is putting powders in complementary colors over where you just put the creams. I use a fair-colored loose powder in all the highlight spots. Don't use HD (high-definition) powder. It shows up as white under a flash.

11 Put a powder similar in tone to your contour color in the coordinating areas to cement that color in place. Buff it out a little or don't. You're gonna be dusty as fuck at this point. You may have to face the fug and just give up. It's OK if you feel this way. There's always long bangs, heavy powder, head down, walk fast, no spook (see here).

12 If you haven't yet given up, your reward is glitter. I use it to hide my brows a bit and blur any area where my lack of skill and finesse would otherwise be apparent. I put glitter or just a star sticker on pimples all the time. I'd rather have someone say "You have a piece of something shiny on your face" than "Wow, that looks ready to pop." It's really a Choose Your Own Adventure product. I combine different-size glitters (inset) and then just tap the mixture on.

13 Put a lick of eyeliner on. If you've noticed, we've returned to your eyes. Had we finished them altogether in the first steps, the glitter, liquid eyeliner, and lashes would've gone to shit with all the sprays and powders that have been flying around. Lashes should be devastating, not dustpans.

14 Draw your brows on. If you're a girl and your eyebrows are already where they're supposed to be to make you pretty, well, fine. Why don't you spend the time you saved by figuring out how not to bleed from your genitals each month? You're not better than me!

15 Dust off your extra powders. This is a great time to text your friends that you're running late. When you keep people waiting, that basically relays that your time is somehow more important than theirs. I have a Rolex, so my time is actually even more valuable, but still—don't be a dickhead.

16 Curl your lashes and put on mascara. Put the wand into the base of your lashes and slowly rotate the wand as you pull it out. Like how you would slowly withdraw your dick if the condom broke.

17 Grab a wispy set of lashes that will blend with your own. Test out a strip of lashes and make sure they don't hit the inner brow bone before you've glued them on. Nothing says "I'm an amateur" more than ill-fitting lashes. Trim as needed and glue the sucker to your face. I use tweezers to carefully press them into the still-impressionable mascara. I lightly coat them with more mascara.

18 Take a second pair of lashes with a little more oomph and trim them so they fit from the center of your pupil to wherever you want them to end. Hit them with a little more mascara because the eyes are the windows to the soul, and my soul is black as fuck.

19 This last pair of lashes can be either the bit you trimmed from the second pair or a new pair. Gluing a section of a spiky or longer lash from the outer pupil to the crease area will help swoop up the whole eye. There is no need to glue the lash to the actual lash line at this point. Nothing wrong with taking a selfie now with your eyes looking down, up, or sideways to plan how to look cute with that night's face.

20 Fuck. I forgot to tell you to wash your hands before you started. Sorry.

21 Put a thin coat of mascara on the bottom lashes using the rotating wand trick you probably failed at before. Open your mouth really wide too, because that'll help make you look less stupid, I bet. Now, using tweezers, slide the fake lashes up under the lower lashes and place them next to the actual lashes so they look like they're growing outta your face.

22 Pucker your lips and smile or make whatever stupid face you need to so you can figure out where to put on some blush. You want something glowy that radiates like an Amber Alert. Then put more on, because sometimes it's the only indicator that you're not a dyke.

23 Line Overline your lips with a pencil that's a shade darker than your butthole. Then fill in the entire lip area with a shade matching your asslips. Just peek at your pucker and then you have an honest-to-God nude shade that is perfectly dialed in to your exact complexion. #colormatchyourbutthole.

24 Smear some more shit on your lips. You're probably missing the open bar somewhere and your friends hate you. I personally usually go for the kinda colors I see in the pubic bushes of douche bags who would call me a fag before they got schwasted but will shrug and say YOLO after last call when I'm the last option upright.

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